Day Seven: Composer spotlight on…Leoš Janáček
Written in 1926 whilst the composer was just over seventy years old, the Sinfonietta by Leoš Janáček is a unique and remarkable work. I first heard this piece two years ago, it being used as an example in a dictation class. The experience was one of a small handful whereby I was genuinely shocked at what I was hearing, the sound world at the beginning something so fresh, innovative and full of life and energy. I, for one, was totally captivated in a way that little other music has done for me. The specific recording chosen was done so because of the timbre of the brass at the beginning. Perhaps unsuited to other repertoire such as Mahler, Bruckner or Strauss, the sound of the Vienna Brass which seems to run on electricity rather than air gives the music a sense of energy which I find fascinating.
My recommended listening for today, the 7th January, is Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta. The below recording is performed by Sir Charles Mackerras and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Perhaps, being a horn player, I am biased towards Janáček’s immense brass orchestration. He calls for four horns, nine trumpets in C, three trumpets in F, two bass trumpets, four trombones, two tenor tubas, and tuba, which is impressive even for today’s standards. The idea for the work came as the composer was sitting in a park and, upon hearing a military band playing music for a gymnastics competition, it seems his inspiration was set alight and the result is the magnificent fanfare that begins the work. The sound of the military band was the ideal for the composer and, if one had to perform the Sinfonietta without a military ensemble (as is the case with virtually every performance today), Janâček asked that the brass players sound as rough, brash, and bright as an army band.
His compositional technique is wonderfully efficient, his masterful use of individual cells, repeated and morphed unexpectedly into new ideas gives the music a very natural, suspenseful feeling. Indeed, a vast majority of the thematic material of the latter movements derives from that of the first movement, the intervallic relationships providing a basis for the melodies we hear later on. This also helps give the work a real sense of unity and arc.
Throughout the piece there are magnificent moments for all instruments; a fiendish trombone solo in the third movement, virtuosic flurries in the flutes and piccolos, wild figures for the celli and basses in the fourth movement and one of my favourite moments in all orchestra repertoire for the horns. I’ll leave you to find that.
